Oceanside mayor removed from SANDAG

Oceanside Mayor Jim Wood was dumped this week as the city’s representative to a regional planning agency, despite his threats of taking legal action to challenge the move.

Led by Councilman Gary Felien, the council voted 3-2 on Wednesday to remove Wood as the city’s primary representative to the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), which controls planning and funding for road projects and oversees regional projects from housing to beach replenishment.

By a unanimous vote, the council also approved a deal aimed at converting the 465-acre El Corazon former sand mine into a vast park sports complex and commercial center.

Backing Felien in his call to dump Wood were Councilmen Jack Feller and Jerry Kern. Councilwoman Esther Sanchez voted with Wood against the move.

Wood vowed to continue fighting.

“This isn’t going to go away easy,” Wood said. He has hired the law firm of former San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre to challenge the council majority.

Wood said Felien, Feller and Kern may have violated state open meeting laws when the three of them joined last month in calling for a special council meeting to adopt an ordinance that would give them the power to appoint someone of their choosing to SANDAG.

City Attorney John Mullen said it is proper for three council members to join in calling for a special meeting as long as they don’t discuss the topic of the session among themselves.

The ordinance was adopted in late December, but Mullen said the council in closed session Wednesday decided to reschedule a vote on the ordinance at its Jan. 16 meeting.

Felien, Feller and Kern said Wood had to go because he has done a poor job at SANDAG getting transportation money for North County and has blocked road projects important to Oceanside.

Those projects include completing a missing portion of Melrose Drive to link state Route 78 with state Route 76 and building a state Route 78 interchange at Rancho del Oro Drive.

“We need someone down in SANDAG fighting for these kinds of infrastructure improvements,” Felien said. He accused Wood of “pandering to no-growth” segments of the community.

Feller said Wood also has failed to push the panel to add Oceanside council members to SANDAG subcommittees, such as planning and transportation, where they could speak up for projects that would benefit the city.

“We can’t allow this to continue,” Feller said. “We, citizens of Oceanside, deserve the seats on these premier committees.”

Sanchez said the council majority was wrong to remove Wood considering that Wood was re-elected to a third term in November with 54 percent of the vote in a three-way race for mayor.

Calling Wood “the most popular mayor in the history of Oceanside,” Sanchez said it “was just unprecedented” to remove him from the regional board.

Rather than dumping Wood from SANDAG over projects many in the city oppose, Sanchez said council members should work on projects where there is consensus, such as improving Coast Highway.

In other council business, the plan for developing El Corazon drew no opposition and praise from the council and the public.